Data: ERC Starting Grants 2026

The European Research Council has announced the awardees of its Starting Grants for 2026 – €705m is shared between 421 early-career researchers.

Researchers at UK institutions accounted for 47 of the grants, the second highest number behind Germany (89 grants). More than half of grants to UK host institutions were in the social sciences and humanities area.

Six researchers currently based at the University of Oxford received grants, the full list of awardees shows, followed by five at UCL and four at the University of Southampton. The remaining UK institution grants went to researchers at LSE, Edinburgh, Durham, Cambridge (all 3), LSHTM, Imperial, Warwick, Manchester (2), Newcastle, Exeter, Sainsbury Laboratory, SOAS, Bath, QMUL, Liverpool, Essex, UEA, Bournemouth, Bristol and Sussex (all 1).

European research commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva said that she was “particularly pleased” that 21 of the grantees are currently based in the USA and Canada, and will relocate to Europe to pursue their research:

“Their decision reflects Europe’s growing appeal for frontier research and is an encouraging sign that the EU’s Choose Europe initiative is helping to attract the next generation of scientific talent while reinforcing Europe's position as a destination of choice for excellent research.”

The ERC notes that a growing number of applications from researchers based outside Europe was, in part, a factor in the lower success rate this year, which stood at just 8.8 per cent. Some 4,807 proposals were submitted, an increase of almost 900 on last year, with success rates similar across the three domains:

Preliminary data for the 2026 ERC Advanced Grant call shows a similar story – the 3,458 proposals received represents a 37 per cent increase compared to two years prior.